Rays Notes: Republican National Convention Makes Things Crazy

The Republican National Convention begins in Tampa today at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, the home of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and that has made things pretty crazy around the area.

LeBrock clarified that he meant “scheduled to play on a Sunday”- plenty of teams have been rained out on Sundays, but that is still bizarre. The Rays lost an off-day earlier this season in exchange for this one here and ended up playing 19 consecutive games without an off-day, the maximum that the MLB CBA allows.

And then, the RNC was an excuse for some of the Rays, particularly the controversial Luke Scott, to talk about their political opinions. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times talked to Scott, Burke Badenhop, and Sam Fuld here. Without criticizing anyone, here were the highlights, all courtesy of Scott.

"“He is against excessive government intervention, rails against laziness and finger-pointers and insists ‘we need to get back to our identity as Americans.'”- Topkin on Scott“President Barack Obama is an open Marxist, an open Socialist not capable of handling the responsibilities of the job.”(On ObamaCare) “That needs to be taken and thrown into muriatic acid and just absolutely disintegrated and never spoken of again. Like it would be blasphemy to even mention it. We can’t afford it. It’s not right. It’s the unaccountability thing, where people can smoke cigarettes and be lazy and be unhealthy, and then you and I have to pay for their health care bills. No, I’m sorry, it shouldn’t work that way. … This bill is another thing that helps people avoid accountability and responsibility and puts the burden on those that are doing things the right way, which is evil. E-V-I-L.” “Here’s a message to those who are socialists and are communists — go live somewhere else. GET OUT! We don’t do that here. Go to Russia. Go to Cuba. Go to China.”"

The crazy news wasn’t all related to the RNC. In a rehab game, Jeff Niemann suffered a setback.

And then the Red Sox and Dodgers completed their crazy trade. Here’s the trade in full.

Boston Red Sox trade 1B Adrian Gonzalez, RHSP Josh Beckett, OF Carl Crawford, and INF Nick Punto to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for 1B James Loney, RHSP Rubby De La Rosa, RHSP Allen Webster, OF Jerry Sands, and INF Ivan DeJesus.

The Red Sox traded a superstar in Gonzalez, albeit one that hasn’t lived up to expectations in his last two years in Boston, along with Beckett and Crawford, who have both basically collapsed, and an afterthought in Punto in exchange for a sub-par first baseman in Loney, a couple of power arms in De La Rosa and Webster, with De La Rosa possessing big league experience but also undergoing Tommy John Surgery last year, and power-hitting outfielder in Sands who has sputtered in the big leagues but has shown nice patient and power in the minor leagues, and a thrown-in in DeJesus. Wow. This move clearly makes the Red Sox worse in the short-term, but what they do is get rid of three huge multi-year contracts and get players with the ability to help the team rebuild. The Dodgers are going all-in for the next few years and are proving that they’re willing to take on money to help the team win. We’ll have to see how this all plays out in coming years.